Another Appalachian Newbie
Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2011 4:28 am
Hey everyone! Figured I had crawled through the forum (which is one of the best and most informative on the internet) enough that it finally deserve me actually posting something. I just got into the distilling lifestyle a couple months ago. And I got hooked. Beyond just making alcohol, its really interesting. I don't goto work one day that I don't get on the forum and browse, just trying to suck in some more info. I'm really interested in getting into 'higher tech' stills later on. But I figured for my first one I'd stick with something I had actually seen working.
My first pot still. I started with an 8 gallon stainless stock pot (stock pot). I'm hoping this will be big enough to atleast half way keep me interested for a while. I can see that seems to be an issue for some people on here. It doesn't take long for you to want to upgrade.
Must be addicting. So either way. I drilled out the lid on my pot and came off with a copper flange that I got from Mcmaster. It says cast copper, and I read here or somewhere else that it contained brass? Or it was bronze. So I just pickled it last night. Only running a 1" copper column. About 16" high. Then it has a 90 degree about.. 24inches I suppose. Reduces down to a 1/2inch, which is my copper tubing that runs into my cooling bucket. I just used the coil-in-the-bucket technique. I know.. Nothing fancy. 
But I'm still proud of it. 
I sealed the flange onto the lid with cork and flour paste. And the lid to the boiler with just flour paste. I ran a steam test and I had no leaks and alot of steam.(didn't hook it into the cooling bucket)
So I'm gonna do my cleaning run in a while. I have a large batch of sugar wash brewing up. I'll do my sacrificial before I mess with that though. Thinking some cheap white wine. I need to see how this thing is gonna run any ways. Well wish me luck everyone! And tell me if I've missed anything, I'll try and get some pictures up soon. As long as you guys promise not to laugh to hard. Thanks for everything. Gonna go read some more now.
My first pot still. I started with an 8 gallon stainless stock pot (stock pot). I'm hoping this will be big enough to atleast half way keep me interested for a while. I can see that seems to be an issue for some people on here. It doesn't take long for you to want to upgrade.
Must be addicting. So either way. I drilled out the lid on my pot and came off with a copper flange that I got from Mcmaster. It says cast copper, and I read here or somewhere else that it contained brass? Or it was bronze. So I just pickled it last night. Only running a 1" copper column. About 16" high. Then it has a 90 degree about.. 24inches I suppose. Reduces down to a 1/2inch, which is my copper tubing that runs into my cooling bucket. I just used the coil-in-the-bucket technique. I know.. Nothing fancy. But I'm still proud of it. I sealed the flange onto the lid with cork and flour paste. And the lid to the boiler with just flour paste. I ran a steam test and I had no leaks and alot of steam.(didn't hook it into the cooling bucket)So I'm gonna do my cleaning run in a while. I have a large batch of sugar wash brewing up. I'll do my sacrificial before I mess with that though. Thinking some cheap white wine. I need to see how this thing is gonna run any ways. Well wish me luck everyone! And tell me if I've missed anything, I'll try and get some pictures up soon. As long as you guys promise not to laugh to hard. Thanks for everything. Gonna go read some more now.
You asked if you missed anything. 
Think it should suffice. And what I like to drink. I've always been quite friendly with rum. But as of now I'm pretty lost on how I'm gonna try that out. I'd love to try aging a whiskey. But maybe later. Guess I still need to read more. When I ran the cheap wine last night. (4 gallons) the cuts were so hard. I'm not sure if I ever got out of the heads. Haha. Hopefully the sugar wash will be more forgiving. Thanks the welcomes!